Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 76934 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76934 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
In a pinch, I could grab it and shoot my way out of the store.
But I was hoping it didn’t come to that.
My gaze slid up to the round mirrors in the corners of the store, allowing me to keep an eye on customers when they disappeared. Theft wasn’t a huge problem, since most people didn’t know what in the store was actually worth any money, but it happened.
They made a beeline for a the second shelf full of decorative boxes.
Good luck, my dudes; I empty the boxes before they hit shelves.
I was about to reach for my phone to call my sister’s husband to come drop by when the door chimed.
Glancing over, I saw someone else who looked like a criminal. But this one was much more polished. Nice suit. Expensive watch. Dark hair, dark eyes. Olive skin.
If I didn’t know better, I would have assumed mafia.
But I knew all of the major players in all the New York Five Families. It was a hobby of sorts.
This guy was not familiar.
But he was too old for a typical associate, so him being new seemed unlikely.
“I’m here for the bag,” he explained as I just stared at him.
“Yeah? Who the hell are you?”
CHAPTER THREE
Christopher
“Christ,” I grumbled as I walked off the elevator and immediately heard the thumping bass coming from my apartment.
It wasn’t something I cared about back in their hometown. Kids were angsty as shit. Those who lost everyone they loved had every right to blast their moody rock music to make themselves feel seen.
But the city wasn’t the suburbs. And I didn’t want cops at the door.
At least the door was still unlocked when I stuck in my key. I’d tried to be firm about not wandering out and with basic safety precautions without scaring the shit out of the kids about city life.
It was just… different.
And they were very suburbanized kids. Doors unlocked, walking around with headphones on and music blasting, being completely unaware of their surroundings.
It was shit that I probably shouldn’t have even let fly in their hometowns, but definitely didn’t want to in the city.
My apartment was in a decent area, but on the walk back from Lorenzo’s, I’d passed two very mentally disturbed unhoused people. And maybe they weren’t violent, but you just never knew. You had to be careful. That was something I was trying to ease the kids into.
But not blasting the music when you lived in a building with a hundred other people? That didn’t need any easing.
Charlotte, the twelve-year-old, was sitting cross-legged on the couch, staring blankly at the thick book on her lap.
Every once in a while, she reminded me so much of her mother that it was hard to breathe.
My sister had been bookish too, always begging our mother to stop at the bookstore or library on the way home while I complained in the front seat that I didn’t want to go to either place again.
She always won.
And now, whenever Charlotte asked, she got to go to a bookstore.
She looked a lot like her mom at that age too. Kind of short with an average build, somewhat round face, full lips, golden eyes, and hair that seemed to flirt with the idea of being blonde without fully committing.
Seeing me, she looked up and let out a sigh that I couldn’t hear, but was so big that I could see it move through her body.
It told me everything I needed to know: that Liam had been blasting the music since the moment I walked out of the building a few hours ago.
Thank God it was still the middle of the work and school day. Or I was sure people would have been bitching already.
I walked down the hall to bang on the door to the room that had once been my bedroom.
The apartment was technically only a two-bedroom. But it had a small office that I’d crammed my shit into so the kids could have the bigger bedrooms. I’d already downgraded their living space so much with the apartment that I didn’t want them to have to sacrifice on personal space.
I’d expected the kids to fight over the primary room, but to my relief, as soon as Charlotte looked out the window in the second bedroom to see that a pigeon colony lived on the roof of the building right next door, she declared that it was hers and that we would just have to find a way to make all her books fit.
That ‘way’ was a pile of boxes leaned up against her wall that I still had to build. But her books weren’t supposed to arrive for another two days, so I was hoping to find the time.
No matter how hard I pounded on Liam’s door, though, he couldn’t hear me over the music, so I let myself in.